


Whispers and Promises

by beggingwolf



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: 2020-2021 NHL Season, Caretaking after an injury, Domestic Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-12 17:20:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29014227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beggingwolf/pseuds/beggingwolf
Summary: Geno first hears the beep of the hotel room’s lock opening. It’s followed immediately by a quick rap of knuckles on the door and then the sound of the handle turning.A quiet moment in a Boston hotel room.
Relationships: Sidney Crosby/Evgeni Malkin
Comments: 26
Kudos: 110





	Whispers and Promises

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this in my head basically a minute after Geno got cross-checked (only after I made sure he wasn’t seriously injured). THEN Sid nearly got injured AND ALSO helped Geno off of the ice when Geno’s skate broke, so as soon as the first intermission hit, I cracked my knuckles and started writing. This is short, sweet, and only edited once.

Geno first hears the beep of the hotel room’s lock opening. It’s followed immediately by a quick rap of knuckles on the door and then the sound of the handle turning.

“Why you knock if you just come in anyway?” Geno asks, muting the TV and looking up to see Sid pulling his mask off of his face. 

“S’polite,” Sid says, and he kicks off his sneakers in the entryway. He starts divesting his sweatpants pockets of entirely too many things: the tin of breath mints he’s been carrying around for the last month, his phone, the spare hotel room key he had bullied out of Geno that morning, a small bottle of hand sanitizer that makes Geno roll his eyes, his wallet—why does he have his _wallet?_ —and drops them all onto the big desk that Geno has draped his suit jacket on top of, too lazy to hang it up. 

“They find out you here, big trouble,” Geno tells him and starts to shift, pushing himself into a better sitting position against the headboard. The movement makes him wince; his ribs ache from Clifton jamming his stick into Geno’s chest in the first period. 

Sid’s face creases in frustration as he moves forward. The whole mattress shifts as he gets onto the bed, crawling across the starched sheets to get to Geno. 

“Lemme see,” he murmurs. “They wouldn’t let me into the athletic trainer’s room when you were in there.”

“It’s nothing,” Geno protests ineffectively as Sid starts pushing up his worn gray t-shirt. He thinks the shirt might be Sid’s, actually; he doesn’t recognize the little logo on the sleeve, and the shirt fits more loosely on his frame than usual. When he had packed for the trip, he had grabbed whatever was in the hamper in his bedroom, and Sid had long since given up trying to keep their clothes separate. 

Sid just frowns at him and pushes the hem up to Geno’s chest. Carefully, his fingers curve around Geno’s ribs, brushing gently over the long bruise Clifton’s stick left along his side, curving across his ribcage and toward his spine. 

Geno hisses; Sid’s fingers are always snow-cold at first, like he carries the Canadian winter in his fingerprints. Sid doesn’t even offer him a conciliatory smile, just stays frowning down at Geno’s skin.

“Is okay, they put ice,” he tells Sid. 

Sid’s icy fingertips skate around the edges of the bruise, careful to stay away from the purpling middle. 

“You’ll be fine,” Sid eventually says, sitting back on his heels, and Geno rolls his eyes. 

“Yes, doctor,” he murmurs. 

Sid tugs Geno’s shirt back into place, patting at his thigh once he’s covered. He shifts, kicking his legs out parallel to Geno’s own and braces himself on a hand, looking at Geno expectantly. 

Geno raises an eyebrow.

“You want pillow?” he eventually asks; he’s mounded up all four of the pillows behind him in a poor man’s imitation of his favorite sofa chair, and he doesn’t particularly want to share any of them. Sid lets out a short breath through his nose and smiles, though, so the choice is made for him.

“Yes I want a pillow, jerk,” Sid huffs, and immediately starts tugging at the one that was giving Geno perfect lumbar support. 

“Gentle, gentle! I’m injure!” Geno complains as Sid rips the pillow out from underneath him. 

“You’re full of shit, that’s what,” Sid tells him, taking his single pillow and bedding down on his side next to Geno. Half of his face falls down hard on the pillow, and he jams a hand under it, shifting his shoulders until he’s gotten comfortable. 

Geno looks down at Sid’s squished face with an expression that has Sid gently kicking out with one of his legs; once he’s made contact, though, he leaves his big leg hooked over Geno’s knee.

Geno lifts the remote again, but his thumb stills on the volume button, and he looks back down at Sid instead. 

“Stupid game,” he tells Sid. 

Sid makes a noise in the back of his throat. The hand that isn’t shoved under the pillow comes up to cup Geno’s hip, resting in the crease between his lower belly and thigh. Sid rubs gently at the polyester of his shorts.

“S’okay, G. You’ll find your game.”

“Captain,” Geno says derisively, a one-word rebuke of Sid’s authoritative tone. 

“Geno,” Sid rumbles with just a hint of exasperation, his voice dropping lower. Geno meets his gaze, and he carefully reaches for Sid’s hand where it’s fiddling with the fabric of his shorts. 

“Hand okay?” he asks softly, and he gently picks Sid’s hand up. His longer fingers wrap around Sid’s, turning his hand so he can peer at Sid’s wide palm. 

There’s no bruising, which is good. Still, Geno’s thumb whispers over Sid’s skin gingerly, and his eyes flick up to measure Sid’s expression. From the half of Sid’s face he can see, there’s no wince of pain, no tightening of his eye. Sid just lets him trace cautious circles into his skin, and Geno's thumb lingers on the deep fate line that cuts through his palm. 

“Why you do?” Geno laughs softly, relieved. “Try to catch puck, what, is baseball now?”

“I was just tryin’ to get control of the puck,” Sid mumbles, a little garbled from the pillow. “Instinct.”

“You see me get injure, want join in?” Geno chides him softly. Sid rolls his eyes—or at least the one eye Geno can see. 

“Shut up,” Sid mutters. 

Geno’s fingers slide up away from Sid’s palm, and he gently pinches Sid’s engagement ring between his fingers.

The gold is cool to the touch, chilled from wherever Sid left it while they played, and it hasn’t had a chance to warm up to match his skin quite yet. Geno lifts Sid’s hand up and presses his chapped lips to Sid’s knuckles, the corner of his mouth stinging just a little from the ring’s chilly bite. 

“Always cold,” Geno complains, and he jams Sid’s fingers between his thighs. 

Sid lifts his head at that, raising his eyebrows and giving Geno a questioning, but not displeased, look.

“Is just for warm,” Geno grumbles; he’s tired and he could get it up for Sid—could _always_ get it up for Sid—if Sid wanted to, but Sid’s eyes are just as sleepy as his own. 

“Mhmm,” Sid hums skeptically, but he lets his head fall back down to the pillow and squeezes Geno’s thigh. Geno covers Sid’s wrist with his hand, just holding him close, willing to tolerate the chill bleeding through the flimsy material of his shorts if it means Sid’s fingers are less like icicles when he inevitably wraps himself around Geno’s sleeping form as the night wears on.

“How you gonna sneak out in morning?” Geno murmurs to him, rubbing over the tiny scar he can still spot on Sid’s wrist from the surgery he had in the summer. “If we get caught, biggest fine, can’t play—”

“Who’s gonna rat us out?” Sid murmurs. “The guys aren’t gonna tell the league I was here.”

“Never know. Ovechkin get ratted,” Geno tells him.

Sid just closes his eyes. 

Geno stares unseeingly at the silent TV screen, so keenly aware of the pressure of Sid’s hand between his legs, of the sound of Sid’s slow, even breaths next to him. His own engagement ring lays warm on his chest, tangled with his crosses and saint medals—all the objects of his worship strung around his throat.

It hasn’t even been a month since Sid proposed. Time feels like it’s moving too fast and too slow; Geno doesn’t know where the last few months have gone, a blur of repetitive nights at Sid’s lake house in Nova Scotia while they waited to hear how and when hockey was going to come back. He misses summers in Europe, his parents, the sound of the crowd roaring, the expensive sushi restaurant he has to convince Sid to eat at. 

Geno rubs his fingers over Sid’s knuckles, lingering over his ring finger. 

Sid losing his patience and proposing is a good consolation prize, Geno reasons. The uncertainty of last season had driven Sid up the wall; he’d spent the first few weeks of the lockdown coming over to Geno’s daily until Geno had put his foot down and insisted Sid just live with him for the month. 

They still haven’t quite managed to sort out whose laundry is whose, but Geno doesn’t mind. The more expensive hoodies he can steal from Sid, the better.

“G, let’s sleep,” Sid mumbles, barely more than a breath past his lips. 

“Bossy,” Geno grumbles, but he starts sliding down his mountain of pillows, shoving them along the headboard until he’s settled down next to Sid. He lets out a grunt as his ribs give a final twinge of pain, and Sid pulls his hand from between Geno’s legs. He shoves it under Geno’s shirt again, rucking the fabric up until his fingers press into the skin of Geno’s stomach, finally starting to warm up.

“Goodnight,” Geno whispers, leaning in for a careful kiss. Because of how deeply Sid’s burrowed into the pillow, he only barely manages to brush the corner of Sid’s lips. 

“Night, G,” Sid whispers back, and Geno rests easy.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written based off of the events of the Pittsburgh vs. Boston game on January 26, 2021, which was played with no audience in the arena due to COVID-19. Geno and Sid are breaking the NHL’s COVID-19 protocols by being in a hotel room together unmasked, which is a thing that got [Ovechkin and a few other Capitals in trouble earlier this month](https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/30750144/nhl-fines-washington-capitals-100k-violations-covid-19-protocols). [These](https://beggingwolf.tumblr.com/post/641430415840837632/just-casually-serving-up-your-daily-dose-of) [two](https://beggingwolf.tumblr.com/post/641430455943610368/can-you-please-not-sidney) moments in particular inspired this fic. 
> 
> The title is from the song “Pittsburgh” by We Are Scientists ([Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/track/4gufe8aOtxxrS5770RcGOV?si=5PG8OuVtT6umkmgdkHxdpQ), [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86Tlvkf6hGY)).
> 
> Come say hi on [Tumblr](https://beggingwolf.tumblr.com)!


End file.
